


Not to Worry

by winterhats



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, post-STR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 22:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18455984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterhats/pseuds/winterhats
Summary: Haruka feels a little weird about Takane and Shintaro spending so much time together. [OLD request].





	Not to Worry

**Author's Note:**

> One of my friends has been asking me to write with the concept of jealous Haruka, but since that's not my favourite thing, I simply decided to recycle an old request of the same thing (from late 2016). I just revised it and edited; I ended up re-writing a bunch of things though, haha.

"You guys are spending a lot of time together."

He spits out the question before he can help himself, and he feels fairly calm about it until he sees the confused look Shintaro shoots him from his spot. Haruka couldn't really tell if it was a glare, so he chooses to think it wasn't.

"What are you even talking about?" Shintaro asks, as if his expression didn't talk for itself. He then clears his throat and leans his chin slightly forward, in some kind of sarcastic gesture Takane herself makes a lot. The thought alone of them unconsciously sharing gestures makes Haruka feel sick.

Trying, and emphasis on _trying,_ to try to sound at least the slightest bit casual, Haruka's reluctantly more specific. "You and Takane, I mean. You're suddenly spending a lot of time together."

His words seem to take Shintaro off guard, and at the mention of the girl, he trails off to a thoughtful expression. Well, to be honest, Haruka was expecting (or hoping) for him to just immediately go "ewww, you think so? Gross," or some immature thing like that, which would make him feel relieved, and then he'd tell himself "see? I'm just being silly!". He knows that's a childish thing to think, but the thought of Shintaro putting thought on his answer like a very decent person, somewhat worried Haruka.

"I guess so," Shintaro eventually says, grimacing just slightly as if he himself was trying to figure out how he felt about it. He shrugs and decides for a small smile. "Nice, right?"

" _Nice,_ you say?"

"What, you don't think it's nice?"

Shintaro suddenly looks and sounds surprised, so Haruka gulps. Dammit. He didn't sound all that friendly in his answer, so of course it grabbed his friend's attention. Haruka hurries to try and save the situation,

"Oh, no! I do! It's super nice!" he rushes to say, and he quickly remembers just how bad he is at this. Takane always says that when it comes to having a conversation, he's an indisputable open book. So, of course Shintaro just raises an eyebrow at his weird response. "It really is! I just, well, wanted to know why you're spending so much time together all of a sudden!"

"I... don't know?" Shintaro answers in the form of a question, but not because he wasn't sure of his words, but because he still didn't comprehend the origin of Haruka's weird behaviour and questions. He eventually just sighs, and tries to get it over with, "It's just better to get along. Constantly fighting wasn't only annoying to everyone after all; we hated it too. And after everything that's happened, it was just too dumb to keep ignoring her like that. So I just think it's better that we decided to try being friends again."

He acts like he's angry about having to go through the trouble of explaining it, but Haruka has the feeling that Shintaro has wanted to say these things out loud for a while. He looks down to the table for a second, where his sketchbook displayed an empty page, just as Shintaro added,

"...Or... just try to be friends in the first place," he said, with slight embarrassment. "We were never friends to begin with. Not really."

Yeah. He understood.

Because it's true; he barely looked at Takane after he found out she was the virus that apparently "tormented him for years" and to be honest, it was pretty awkward to be in the same room as them.

Shintaro would just let everyone know he didn't want anything to do with Takane. No one liked or agreed with his point of view, especially, of course, Takane herself. Their discussions turned way, way more bitter than the ones they had back then in highschool and even worse and louder than the ones they had when he didn't even know it was her inside his phone. And they drove everyone crazy.

Because everyone kept saying that at some point Shintaro would get over it. At some point Takane would just stop glaring back. And so much time passed that the actual question was if those things would really happen; if they'd actually ever make up.

Until recently, apparently.

All of a sudden, things are okay. Takane gladly told Haruka she forced Shintaro to have a civilized conversation with her, and while they still didn't agree on some things, something they both admitted was that they couldn't keep this up. They didn't have to be besties or anything, but if they were gonna be in the same place with the same people they at least had to get along. They didn't have to be friends; they just had to tolerate each other.

And it started like that, but after a while, they seemed to have scratched that after deciding that _hey_ , they actually do wanna be friends with each other. Which is why Haruka is being so ridiculous right now.

Because right now things are okay. They're getting along, everyone's happy about it, Shintaro and Takane are happy about it, and Haruka's stuck with this horrible feeling inside his stomach when he sees how much fun those two have with each other.

"Why are you making that awful face?" Shintaro eventually says, promptly deciding to address the elephant in the room. He had a knowing expression in his face, but he still says, "You almost look upset about it. What's up?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all. I just wanted to know what you thought about it!" he manages to say, and of course, this answer's welcomed by Shintaro's look of "how stupid do you think I am?" So giving up, Haruka lets honesty take over his voice, "...It's not a lie when I say it's nothing important, though. I'm being dumb, you might as well just ignore me."

"Okay, so... I can either say alright and just ignore you like you're asking me to, _or_  I could keep insisting..." Shintaro hums, making a sarcastic, thoughtful face for a second. He ends up sending him a smile, "Your head is like some kind of weird dimension, okay? No one knows what's going on there, maybe not even that dumb girlfriend of yours. So I'm going to have to ask since we're eventually going to come back to this subject, as it's obviously been bothering you. _What's up?_ "

He's surprised for a second, not having expected this retort at all, so Haruka can't help letting out a giggle. Shintaro had really changed for the best during all this time, huh? Haruka wishes Ayano was here to see it.

"...You're a good friend, Shintaro-kun."

"Wh – whatever, it's just that we'll avoid wasting our time on this later on if we talk now, alright?" Shintaro immediately looks away and he can spot hints of a blush on his face. Ah, he's embarrassed because of his compliment, isn't he? Well, it might be true that Haruka spits compliments way too casually; Takane complains about that too. "So just tell me what's the problem."

"I actually don't know myself," he answers. "It's just like last time."

"Last time?"

"Yeah, in highschool. You do remember when I asked you to teach me more about videogames, right?"

Yeah, that's a good example to explain it, Haruka thinks. He remembers having felt like this back then too. Actually, if it wasn't for this feeling, he wouldn't have asked Shintaro for help and they probably wouldn't have became such close friends. Yeah, he remembers wanting to be able to make Takane enjoy herself around him; be able to make her happy.

"Oh, that," at the memory, Shintaro's expression softens and he instantly looks like it wasn't that big of a deal. "So you're just jealous?"

"...Jealous, you say?" now, where did that come from? Haruka manages a giggle that dies down after he realizes Shintaro's serious. So he ponders it for a second. "...Jealous? _Jealous._ "

"...Yeah, errr... it's a feeling. It's when–"

"I _know_  what it means," Haruka rushes to say, letting out a snicker along the words. Shintaro frowns at being interrupted, "No, but it couldn't be, I mean, it doesn't make sense. You think that's what's wrong? You think I'm jealous?"

"I _know_  you're jealous, dumbass. You were jealous back then too, weren't you?"

"What? No, I just wanted to– uh..."

"...To be as good as me so Takane could have "fun" when playing with you too," Shintaro finishes the sentence for him, and Haruka suddenly feels his face heat up. It was just the two of them here, but it really felt like he had accusing fingers pointing at him now. "Come _on_ , I'm practically quoting you! Ohhh, I wanna make her smile, bleeeh, she's so cool and amazing! I have a list of baby names ready for when we have kids!"

"Okay, first of all, that list is something I made very recently, not in highschool, so your mocking is not completely accurate," Haruka starts, looking away in embarrassment. He wishes he never told Shintaro about that. "Secondly, please don't tell Takane I have that list."

"Too late now," Shintaro lets out a laugh himself, and before Haruka could freak out, he went on, "Still, I have no idea why you thought Takane and I had _such a great time_  playing at the festival. In reality, I'm still not sure how she didn't punch me after all the shitty things I said."

As Shintaro added "well, I'm sure she wanted to,", Haruka just sighs.

"I don't know, she..." he trails off, trying to think back. "She seemed focused. She had defeated everyone else so easily."

His friend shrugs, like he was agreeing but only sort of, before going back to the original subject, "Okay, so... you _know_  Takane likes you, right?"

"Yes," Haruka's quick to answer, feeling proud. "She tells me that a lot."

"Ew, I didn't ask. 'Kay, and you know she has liked you for like, uh... probably ever since she met you?"

"I doubt that it was when she _met_  me–"

"So why are you unsure about it all of a sudden?" he interrupts him before he could start an analysis over it. Haruka pauses for a moment, only bringing himself to shrug in the end. Shintaro sighs again, "Listen. Takane and I are friends that are trying to make up for lost time. We were idiots and we want to correct it, okay? There's no other reason behind the fact we're hanging out so much."

"But you're so smart," he suddenly says, and Shintaro's taken off guard. He immediately sends a look that asked what did that have to do with anything. "Smart and a good friend. Shintaro-kun's very impressive. And Takane's... ah, how to even begin to talk about how amazing she is? I mean– aren't you going to fall for her? Have you _seen_  her?"

Shintaro blinks at him, thoroughly scanning his face with his eyes in search of a sign of sarcasm, but since Haruka was serious, he obviously finds none. So he takes in a breath, while a blush spreaded on his face thanks to the uncomfortable topic, "O – okay, dude. Listen. Takane is... I guess she's– _I guess_  she's kind of... pretty. _I guess._ "

He spoke as if the words he said were giving him an actual stomachache, so Haruka frowned. He talks back very seriously, "She is beautiful."

"Sure, whatever. I agree she's pretty," he rolled his eyes, the redness on his face not getting any better. "But even so I'm not– I'd never... I would never want to... with her... uh, you know."

Confused, Haruka tilts his head to the side at Shintaro's weird explanation, "You'd never... want to hold hands with her?"

Something inside of Shintaro's brain seemed to die when Haruka says that, because all of a sudden he's very collected again and he's nodding,

"Yes. Exactly. I would never want to hold hands with her," he repeats, but his eyes widen as he says his next words, speaking slowly and looking at him very carefully as if were trying to get him to understand a complicated thing, "... _Or_  any other _things_  of the kind, okay?"

Shintaro was creeping him out a little now, so Haruka only awkwardly smiles and nods, "O – okay."

"Yeah," finally smiling, Shintaro nodded back. "I just don't see her that way, alright? So don't worry, because she sure as hell doesn't see me that way either. Just yesterday I beat her in Mario Kart and she licked her entire hand and then rubbed it all over my face."

"...Ew."

"Ew indeed," Shintaro nodded. "So let's compare. What did she do the other day when _you_  beat her in Mario Kart?"

That had only happened once, and it was rather recently, so Haruka's quick to locate the event in his head. Again, he feels a tiny blush in his face after he remembers it, "...She kissed me and told me I did a good job."

Shintaro sends him a snarky smile, "See? Then there's that. Don't take it the wrong way, though, she is... amazing, I guess."

It seemed he was done talking then, but he quickly adds,

"If you tell her I said this stuff, I'm killing you," he pauses to sound serious but he simply manages to make him laugh.

"You told her about the list of baby names I made, though."

"I didn't! I was just kidding!"

"It's okay," Haruka can't help another laugh, offering the answer that apparently leaves Shintaro content. Well, he might have been a bit dumb when he didn't consider his feelings; it was dumb to simply assume everyone would look at Takane with the same eyes as him.

Shintaro seems to be about to say something else when Takane conveniently enters the room. The door's right behind Haruka, so he has to turn around to see it's her, and to see she's carrying her adorable pink cheeks with her embarrassed expression.

Haruka's about to excitedly greet her and maybe get up to hug her too, but she engages in some kind of staring contest with Shintaro that makes him feel left out. They... seemed to understand what's going on, because the other boy suddenly has the same flustered face as her. Haruka only understands when Shintaro asks,

" _How long_  have you been standing outside the door?"

At the question, Takane manages to drop some of that embarrassment she walked in with and pulls up a smirk, speaking in some kind of cocky voice, "Long enough to hear you admit how great I am."

"Oh, _shut up,_ " Shintaro crosses his arms, rolling his eyes to justify looking away and blushing again. "Why don't you instead pay attention to your idiot of a boyfriend and assure him he's being, well, an idiot."

"Yeah, you're pretty dumb."

Even if she's saying that, she's sliding her arms over his shoulders to hug him from behind. He actually almost apologizes, but he's able to pick up the fondness in her words before that, so Haruka can't help standing up to trap her in a proper hug.

"Aww, Takaneeee...! I love you so muuuch...!"

He's relieved; he had the small fear that she'd be mad to him for being insecure about this sort of thing, but the way she laughed it off felt so nice. And when Takane hugs him back, he can almost hear Shintaro's disgusted expression when he speaks up,

"Why do I have to see this?!"

"You're the one who told me to pay attention to my idiot of a boyfriend."

"I meant as in to tell him not to worry or something, not this!"

"Whaaat, I can't hear you! My healthy relationship abstains me from hearing your annoying whining, master."

"You don't even make sense!"

Their discussion's surely going last a few more minutes, but Haruka doesn't let go of her at any moment, and she doesn't seem to mind.


End file.
